WITSEC
Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program

By Pete Earley and Gerald Shur
Bantam, $26.95
ISBN 0553801457

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Hiding witnesses from the mob

In 1963, just two years after being hired as a young Justice Department attorney, Gerald Shur was ordered to summarize a series of abundant but confusing FBI interviews with Joe Valachi, a member of the Vito Genovese crime family. Valachi was the first gangster to break the Mafia's code of silence, omerta, by testifying before a congressional committee.

He thus became the first mobster to receive protection from the federal government in exchange for testimony against mob cohorts -- a move that marked the beginning of what would become the federal witness security program, or WITSEC, which has protected more than 6,400 witnesses and led to the conviction of more than 10,000 criminals, most of them gangsters, drug ringleaders and members of motorcycle and street gangs.

In WITSEC, a fascinating book cowritten by Shur -- "the father" of the program -- and author Pete Earley, we discover that, starting with Valachi, Shur was involved with every major Mafia witness to testify against the mob in recent history. As the narrative unfolds, the reader learns about the difficulties of getting the program into place and taken seriously, from a lack of financial resources to infighting between federal agencies and inadequate training for law enforcement officers who protected witnesses in the early years.

The book also gives the reader a sense of the often surreal experience of witnesses and family members who are relocated to new cities under new identities, complete with official documents and a fictionalized personal history, often never again allowed to contact family members, friends or associates.

In addition to the history of the WITSEC program, the book looks at Shur's struggle with multiple sclerosis and the stress he endured when he and his family were under protection from a feared assassination attempt by a drug cartel hitman. Along the way, we see the values that led Shur to stand by the WITSEC program, even when it came under heavy criticism.

The story of a program that has changed the face of the modern American justice system, WITSEC is a compelling history of the program and of Shur's role in it.

Dave Bryan is a writer in Montgomery, Alabama.